It's a trap !

I was told in December 1997 that there would be a scheme for me to have some money out of my house (recently widowed in November 1996), being money would be very short in the future, with the cost of keeping a house up together etc. My financial adviser told me about the Bank of Scotland scheme, which I applied for and was granted Ł30,000 against the house.

Not expecting the house market to rise like it did, and was told that the Bank of Scotland expect houses to rise about 5% each year. I thought it would be a good scheme to join and went ahead with it.

Now my circumstances have changed, my daughter and her family (who lived reasonably closeby) will be moving a long way away from me, I thought that it would be wise to perhaps sell up and move with them to be closer as I got older. I now find that this will be impossible to do. The house that I live in now when sold, will only buy a very small one, or even a mobile home. I did not expect this, and feel so upset that in the future I will be completely alone not being able to visit my daughter or live close to her, now my house is not worth selling because of repayment costs to the Bank of Scotland.

I now see that whether this problem took 2 or 20 years to show itself, that this type of scheme is a trap.